First, Husserl distinguished between numbers that are the result of counting actual objects before us and numbers as symbols. Clearly, most of mathematics deals with numbers as symbols. Husserl claimed that symbolic numbers, as well as propositions and universals, cannot be reduced to mental states, as psychologism claimed. As intentional objects of consciousness, in Franz Brentano’s (1837–1917) sense of intentionality, these logical and mathematical entities are objective.